Facebook (FB) is an American for-profit corporation and online social media

and social networking service based in Menlo Park, California. The Facebook
website was launched on February 4, 2004, by Mark Zuckerberg, along with
fellow Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew
McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes.[6][7][8]

The founders had initially limited the website's membership to Harvard

students; however, later they expanded it to higher education institutions in
the Boston area, the Ivy League schools, and Stanford University. Facebook
gradually added support for students at various other universities, and
eventually to high school students as well. Since 2006, anyone age 13 and
older has been allowed to become a registered user of Facebook, though
variations exist in the minimum age requirement, depending on applicable
local laws.[9] The Facebook name comes from the face book directories often
given to United States university students.[10]

Facebook may be accessed by a large range of desktops, laptops, tablet

computers, and smartphones over the Internet and mobile networks. After
registering to use the site, users can create a user profile indicating their
name, occupation, schools attended and so on. Users can add other users as
"friends", exchange messages, post status updates and digital photos, share
digital videos and links, use various software applications ("apps"), and
receive notifications when others update their profiles or make posts.
Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups organized by
workplace, school, hobbies or other topics, and categorize their friends into
lists such as "People From Work" or "Close Friends". In groups, editors can pin
posts to top. Additionally, users can complain about or block unpleasant
people. Because of the large volume of data that users submit to the service,
Facebook has come under scrutiny for its privacy policies. Facebook makes
most of its revenue from advertisements which appear onscreen.

Facebook, Inc. held its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2012, and
began selling stock to the public three months later, reaching an original
peak market capitalization of $104 billion. On July 13, 2015, Facebook
became the fastest company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to reach a
market cap of $250 billion.[11] Facebook has more than 1.86 billion monthly
active users as of December 31, 2016.[12] As of April 2016, Facebook was
the most popular social networking site in the world, based on the number of
active user accounts.[13] Facebook classifies users from the ages of 13 to 18
as minors and therefore sets their profiles to share content with friends only.
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